Sunday, June 26, 2011

Notes To Self:
Do not piss of local law enforcement.
Dande is not good. Probably should investigate further.
Anyone who wears a suit in the jungle and does not seem to feel discomfort despite said conditions is probably not to be trusted. Outside of the obvious.

It's been a long week.

You never expect that you're going to get shot at when you visit a local charity. There's something in the word "charity" that makes you expect a helping hand, or assistance. Not a large man in a suit grinning at you with several heavily armed gunmen to each side. Luckily no tall men with no faces in suits. Just ones with gunmen. Actually, maybe not too lucky. Misfortune shouldn't be measured up to misfortune, it's all bad. It's a bit too hot to be typing but I gotta get this down on paper.

Simone and I broke into their building. I guess that was our first mistake-- my first mistake. There weren't any alarms, and at the time it wasn't well guarded. We were looking for some financial papers to corroborate what we learned about Dande's affiliation with the local and state governments. The headquarters seem to be the remains of a school that has been rebuilt for the purposes of a bureaucracy. After opening several locked doors we found a room filled with filing cabinets, assumed to be an office of some sort. I was looking through their returns and payments whilst Simone checked through the other papers that were in this desk area. We made several worrying discoveries. The papers being sent to the other aid agencies, NGO's, government agencies and the UN have been meddled with. The number of children in Dande's count doesn't match the information it has been sending to these organizations-- it says there are fewer children in the town than there actually are. This has been repeated within reports for several other townships. Unfortunately, after looking over these papers things went awry.

Okay, out of my lawyer voice. Who the fuck gave these bastards flamethrowers? Please. Someone tell me. Oh wait, I funded this entire goddamn system based on the trade of illegal weaponry in order to post on this blog that I keep incase I end up a corpse (likely due to the use of illegal weaponry.) Simone ran off, and I got set on fire (luckily just on the arm because I really don't think I could get good care for first degree burns out here). By the time managed to put out the fire I had been surrounded by the guards. I was taken by the boss. Picture one of those plastic dough bags squeezed into a suit, chewing a cigar. That's this boss. He looked like a melted snowman. The man told me "They'll be his by next month," and threw me out.

I've been trying to do something about it. But I have no idea what to do.

Friday, June 17, 2011

As you might be able to tell, I've survived my encounter with the border patrols. General checks, more money changing hands. Luckily dollars are worth quite a bit around here. I've stopped worrying about funding international crime, and at least I know faces and names for when I get back to my feet. Which may never happen, particularly when one glances at the number of people exposed to the MONSTER and survive for more than a couple of years.

We've been staying here for about a week, and already there are signs coming in through the edges that Africa isn't as free of the MONSTER as I'd wished. Mostly it's in the people, in the way they tell stories, the way they glance out of the corners of their eyes and in how they constantly look at the shadows. The way they warn you about the woods. I wonder how many thrill seeking tourists have wandered into the woods looking for a tiger and ended up finding a darker fate. Not that being eaten by a tiger isn't a dark fate.

Sorry about Simone's last post. She's not the most eloquent of translators. I guess I'm stuck with her. Bless. I don't think being shot did anything for her character, either. Also, well, she hates it here. I dunno what to do. I was never any good with girls. Or guys. Or people who aren't so embroiled in the legal process that they lose all humanity. First lawyer joke's out of the way, then.

Anyway, to business. We've been asking around about papers that I wish to have in my possession, mostly financial reports. This village is small by my standards, though I did live in New York so I may have a distorted perception of scale. It's a little over two thousand people, but it seems like less. There's a school set up, a relatively good market place, and a black market for illicit trading and information gathering. I've been incapable of finding too much about that. I have, however, come across some rather interesting facts about the aid agency stationed here. Mostly about the size of the donations they give to the local and state governments.

So I'm going to visit the aid organization's headquarters, this Dande group, tomorrow, and see if there's anything odd going on. I'll probably update soonish. Sooner than usual, in any case.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Heya internet, this is Simone. The boss (which is what some of you lot call the ~monster~ [bossmanAd makes me use that because he hates synonyms and thinks lots o' words sound silly, but I digress]) but anyway he told me to write on here. He's so fucking anal about his system, you know. Total fucking one track minded OCD. And I don't give a fuck about being PC or polite or accurate because it's a description and I have a bullet hole in my leg so you aren't allowed to argue. So Adam is a total neurotic but I guess I'm stuck with him, but whateva. Anyway, I'm in the back of this van somewhere in central Africa whilst Ad goes out to negotiate with the tough looking armed militants who stopped us. All the locals seem nervous, which is a good sign. Sarcasm. Forget you can't type it. But swear to god, he comes back full of bullet holes and I'm going to kill him. Our confused Armenian friend keeps asking me what's going on since his grasp of English is-- well, it's not bad for three years work, but not good enough to keep up with bossman's fast talk. I have no idea what's going on actually.

But anyways; I have to angst about my life or sommat. I'm not going to ramble too much because I am trying my best not to turn into the boss, who never stops talking. Ever. Lawyer magic, I think. There's not much to talk about that hasn't been said a million times before by much more eloquent people than me. Dad was killed in a mysterious fire when I was twoish, we lived in a house by the woods, I have memories of a tall, dark, faceless, be-tentacled imaginary friend. Forgot about him for a few years, grew up, got a life, good grades, un degré dans les longues, minoring in International Relations, got a dull temp job courtesy of my mom. Yeah, not very ethical, but I don't have half the ethics of the bossman. Who is worryingly straight edged. Bet he didn't even sip wine before he hit twenty one. T'was good right up to the point where some guy woke me up from a nap by handcuffing me and putting a bag over my head, which is a privilege reserved for my boyfriend and not some random black ops guy.

I'm kinda sick of being away from home. Yeah, it's cool to be in Africa, and yeah I wanted to be here after graduation anyway. But... why. And that's not a pretentious why either, it's a "so many better places to put ex-illegally collected prisoners" why. I want to go home. Now I'm sounding like a three year old and there are gunshots outside, so yes. Going to stop typing. Laters, internet.